20 Aug 5 Must-haves on your new website

You want to create a new website, but aren’t sure what you should have on it? Let us help!

Here’s a list of the 5 most important elements we recommend for a successful website.

1. Ease of navigation

If you’re unfamiliar, the navigation is the menu bar most commonly found at the top of a website. This is where you can find the various other pages that make up your website, such as: About, Our Services, etc.

There is nothing worse than going to a website and not be able to find what you are looking for. Keeping your navigation simple, with short and descriptive titles, will allow the user the best chance at finding what they need.

If you have a large website, with many options in the navigation, do your best to categorize them. Keep pages grouped under one drop-down that relate to each other.

2. Call to actions

I’m sure you’ve visited a website, looked at the homepage, and it said something like,”Sign up for our newsletter for exclusive deals!” followed by a “Subscribe” button or a box to enter your email.

This is a call to action. It’s a way to attract the user to what you want them to see or do.

Many websites use a large image slider on their homepage to draw users into specific content. Basically any buttons that say, “Click here” or “View more” are ways to keep the user’s attention.

This is an excellent way to engage with your users and direct them to the most important information on your website.

3. Contact info

One of my pet peeves is getting to a website, looking for a Customer Service link, and not finding it. Isn’t that frustrating?

You should always make your contact information easily accessible. You don’t even have to create a ‘Contact Us’ page, at least an email in the footer will do.

What if someone came to your site and wanted to hire you for your services? They need to know how they can contact you within 1 click at most.

4. Simple (but great) design

I know this sounds cliché, but great design goes a long way.

As a designer, I feel that a more updated and modern website is more trustworthy than one that is not. In fact, if a website is designed so well, someone (like myself) may be even more enticed to do business with you.

Keeping it simple, with no long drawn out paragraphs or ugly color combinations, will make the overall user experience even better.

5. High resolution photos

This I cannot express enough.

So many people will point out websites that they feel look great, and in the end it’s mostly because of the amazing quality of the photos.

You can have the most simple, non-fancy looking website, but throw in some high-res aerial shots of a big city, and suddenly your site becomes awesome.

There are plenty of great resources for public domain photography (in high-res, too). So when choosing the photos for your new website, pick them with this in mind.